The Red Stethoscope: May 21, 2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

May 21, 2010

As most of you know, we are at University of Indiana Hospital in Indianapolis arranging for Linda to have her liver transplant here.

Dr. Tector just came by Linda's room to tell us that he has accepted a liver for her, and she will get her transplant tonight. They expect to harvest the donor liver around 6 p.m. Indiana time, 5 p.m. Chicago time, and Linda will go down to surgery here beginning around 9 or 10 p.m. Indiana time, 8 or 9 p.m. Chicago time.

Thanks again to all of you for your prayers and good wishes. I'll be busy tonight [obviously], but as soon as there is news after the operation, I will write to everyone again.

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Why The Red Stethoscope?

Ever since the Mayo brothers discovered the importance of doctors washing their hands before and after touching each patient, infection control in the hospital setting has become a major concern of all doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. Recently, hospital acquired infections by strains of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics, passed from one hospitalized patient to another, have been a major source of concern among infectious disease specialists.

As a result, rather than using the same stethoscope to listen to every patient's heartbeat, breath sounds and bowel sounds as they make rounds from room to room, and risk carrying bacteria from one patient to another on the steoscope, hospital patients who have infections get a red stethoscope placed in their room, and each doctor who visits that patient uses the red stethoscope to listen to the infected patient's chest and abdomen. The red stethoscope never leaves the patient's room, and hence cannot be the source of infection passed from one hospitalized patient to another.

I chose the red stethoscope as the symbol of this blog, because its advent and use proves that there are still many lessons to be learned by doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and other health care providers from the mistakes in their hospitals which continue to injure or kill hospital patients who should not be suffering and dying .

About Me

I am a lawyer, and husband of a liver transplant patient. As I begin writing this blog my wife has been hospitalized for four months following her transplant surgery, and it does not appear she will be well enough to get discharged any time soon. During her hospital confinements she has suffered just about every indignity and injury any person her age could be expected to survive.

I want the world to know about her ordeal, and about the terrible things done to her by doctors and other health care providers who believe it is their right to treat a patient however they please, even if the patient doesn't want the treatment. Everything in this blog is factual. Most of it I saw with my own eyes. The dates and times given are real, and the names of the patient, the hospitals, the doctors, the hospital administrators and other hospital personnel used in this blog are real names of real people.

If there are any print or broadcast journalists out there who would like to help publicize the egregious health care abuses described in this blog, you can E-mail me at red.stethoscope@gmail.com and I will arrange to provide you with documents supporting all the facts set out in my blog, to assist you in your work.